Li Tangli’s feelings toward Ji Jiayu could hardly be called liking—it was closer to helplessness. The mission left her no room to choose.
But when it came to the mission’s contents, she couldn’t reveal a single word to Gu Zhi.
So all she could do was admit: “I like him a lot.”
Gu Zhi said nothing for a long moment. The hand hanging at his side clenched the towel, veins bulging on the back of his hand, the half-damp towel nearly wrung dry by force.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Even if he forced you to jump into a pool, went on trips with other women, ditched you halfway home in the rain—you’d still hopelessly like him?”
The man’s fingers tipped up her chin. The pressure wasn’t heavy, but the hardness in the gesture was impossible to ignore.
Especially those deep gray eyes—like the surface of the sea a second before a tsunami hits, calm on the face of it, but crisis lurking underneath.
Once caught, the swell would rise and drag her under, and she’d be at constant risk of drowning.
Li Tangli couldn’t even manage to duck her head away.
Her personality was slow and clumsy. Faced with someone giving her trouble, instinct would push her to resist, but that resistance was usually feeble. It couldn’t drive off anyone with bad intentions—if anything, it only made them bolder.
She was well aware of how weak she was, and so, after a token show of defiance, she pitifully gave in, letting him do as he pleased.
Just like right now.
She sensed keenly that Gu Zhi was losing control, and tilted her face up half-obediently, as if willing to offer up even her fragile throat into his palm, trying to use her timidity to call his reason back.
Only her trembling eyelashes betrayed the unease inside her.
But seeing her stay silent, Gu Zhi pushed further, stepping half a pace closer.
Li Tangli’s eyelid twitched. A faint itch crept over her knee—Gu Zhi was pressing brazenly against it.
She lowered her eyes, pupils constricting. He seemed to have brushed open the hem of her bathrobe without meaning to, and his crisp trousers came into direct contact with her.
One of the man’s legs rubbed between the girl’s tightly closed knees, the dark fabric against her knee, reddened from her earlier fall—it itched and ached at once.
This was too intimate. Too improper.
In her heart, Li Tangli had always respected Gu Zhi, thought of him as an elder. Despite their unpleasant first meeting, that hadn’t stopped her from thinking Mr. Gu was kind and reliable.
Now, the kind and reliable Mr. Gu had wedged his leg between her slender ones.
Li Tangli could no longer lie to herself.
The nerves that Gu Zhi had been deliberately blurring the boundaries of these past days were slowly waking, going on alert. But by now it was already too late.
Like a rusted gear grinding into motion, past contact flickered past her mind frame by frame.
She looked up at Gu Zhi’s face again, and the more she thought back, the more her heart pounded in alarm—something was stirring, on the verge of surfacing.
Gu Zhi spoke again: “I… does it have to be him? Can’t it be someone else?”
Who was “someone else”?
His intentions were laid bare. Li Tangli’s heart thumped wildly; without time to think it through, she said in a rush, as urgent as wind and rain: “It has to be him, no one else!”
Hearing her bite down on the impossibility of it, Gu Zhi practically forced a “heh” up from his throat, his face darkening.
Even sensing the danger coming, she had nowhere to flee.
Ahead of her, Gu Zhi wouldn’t yield an inch, so she instinctively leaned back, flustered, bracing her left hand behind her—nearly throwing herself straight onto the bed. Black Lotus Novel Translations | Black Lotus Novel
She really had been frightened out of her wits, so intent on evading that she didn’t stop to think—this was Gu Zhi’s bed beneath her. How was that any different from delivering meat straight to his mouth?
In her panic, her right hand nearly flung the hot water aside, but a hand quickly steadied her.
It was Gu Zhi—he’d grabbed hold of the cup, and, along with the cup, her hand, his palm closing over her fingers.
In the motion, the cup’s rim shook, and the faintly hot water spilled out, splashing down over their overlapping hands.
“Let—let go!”
Stammering, Li Tangli tried to pull her hand back, but Gu Zhi wouldn’t allow it. He didn’t budge an inch.
That hand was like a slick, slippery snake, crawling up along the back of her hand, and Li Tangli watched, wide-eyed, as the man’s fingertips playfully flicked open her cuff—
The phone on the nightstand rang.
Tch.
Gu Zhi straightened up, magnanimously letting her off.
Li Tangli was like a fish just hauled ashore, her chest heaving as she gasped in a couple of breaths. Fine beads of sweat had even broken out on the tip of her nose—moments ago she’d been cold, and now she was thoroughly overheated.
She reached her arm out for the phone, but Gu Zhi beat her to it, picking it up first.
Seeing that he couldn’t even be bothered to keep up his polite front anymore, interfering with arrogant high-handedness, Li Tangli held her palm out toward him: “Give it back.”
Gu Zhi saw her biting her lip, looking as if she’d been wronged terribly, all pitiful. He hadn’t even done anything worse yet, and she was already looking bullied half to death.
Privately amused, the gloom in his heart considerably lifted, he handed the phone over: “What’s the rush?”
Li Tangli had just made out the name on the screen when she immediately heard him say: “Put it on speaker.”
Why should she? Did she need his permission just to talk to his nephew?
She pressed her lips together as the ringtone kept going.
“Don’t want me to hear, hm?”
Gu Zhi watched her sulk with perfect composure, reaching up to twirl a strand of hair hanging by her face around his fingertip.
He glanced coldly at the caller’s name on the screen and said, unhurried: “Answer it or it’ll hang up.”
“…None of your business.” Li Tangli muttered under her breath, swallowing her anger, turning her face to the other side, but still switched on speakerphone after connecting the call.
The weight on her head sank—Gu Zhi had patted her head, as if rewarding her obedience.
On the other end, Ji Jiayu’s voice came through, raised: “I’m on that road, where are you?”
It seemed he’d turned back but hadn’t found her there.
But perhaps because Gu Zhi had thrown her thoughts into disarray, facing Ji Jiayu now stirred up no particular feeling in her at all.
She said, “I’m not there, you don’t need to look for me.”
Ji Jiayu’s hand holding the phone stiffened.
Her voice and tone were just as usual, but something subtle had quietly shifted. That inconspicuous change left him faintly uneasy.
That unease made Ji Jiayu do something rare—lower his head and admit fault.
He apologized to her, awkwardly: “Li Tangli, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you alone on the road… I lost my temper. Where are you now?”
There was a rustling sound from the other end; he waited a few seconds before a muffled voice came through: “I’m already home. It’s fine, Jiayu, I know you were in a bad mood today.”
Ji Jiayu paused, feeling that her tone carried a trace of something like irritation—sulky, as if she were quarreling with someone.
Li Tangli was indeed in a mood, but not with him—with his uncle.
Because while Ji Jiayu was apologizing to her, Gu Zhi was bent over, wiping the water off her hand.
He wiped with extraordinary care, tracing along each knuckle one by one. Even the narrow spaces between her fingers he pried open, working the cloth through.
Li Tangli shivered. The spilled water had been wiped dry, but her palm was sweating all over again.
She tried to brush his hand off like flicking away dust. Instead, her wrist was caught, and the man calmly pulled her back, continuing to wipe each finger in turn.
Annoyed, she shoved at his arm, but it was all hard muscle—she couldn’t budge him, and the phone didn’t even shake loose.
Though it still sat on her lap, no one cared about it anymore. | black lotus Novel Archive | black lotus novel
Li Tangli’s attention had been entirely stolen away by Gu Zhi, and Ji Jiayu’s apology went in one ear and out the other, half-listened to.
Ji Jiayu asked again: “So, you’re not mad at me anymore?”
Hearing his nephew’s clumsy fishing for reassurance, Gu Zhi’s mouth curved.
But right after, he heard Li Tangli say: “Mm, not mad.” His lips pressed back into a flat line.
After hanging up, Gu Zhi asked coolly: “Just like that, you forgive him?”
As if he had any right to be the one calling her out.
Remembering how he’d deliberately caused mischief during the call, Li Tangli, pushover that she was, couldn’t hold it in anymore: “How can you even say that?”
“Why can’t I?”
Gu Zhi’s face showed no expression, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on her: “Didn’t you just lie? Said you were home, when really you’re spending the night with his uncle. Bad girl.”
His voice was very soft, as if pressed close to her ear, whispering something unspeakable.
Li Tangli unconsciously clutched at the sheet beneath her hand; the moment his words fell, as if a ghost had gripped her ankle, she shot up to her feet.
She couldn’t stay any longer. Her instinct told her that if she stayed, he’d tear straight through the paper window without a second thought, dig into that little hole, and rip apart this unspoken pretense between them.
She herself knew things would blow up sooner or later, but she could put it off as long as possible—at least not tonight.
She hurried to the door, putting distance between them: “Mr. Gu, I’m a little tired.”
Gu Zhi paused, glanced at her, and didn’t press her further.
“Do you remember where the guest room is?”
“I remember.”
The girl’s head bobbed up and down, just like a chick pecking rice. Her hand was already impatiently on the doorknob, afraid he might insist on walking her there himself.
As she opened the door, Li Tangli heard the man behind her call out: “Remember to take a hot shower when you get back, go to sleep early. Good night.”
He’d gone back to being gentle and refined again.
Her mouth opened, but only two words came out: “Good night.”
After she left, Gu Zhi sat down on the edge of the bed. The sheets, rumpled by her hands, he slowly smoothed flat again.
Having taken her cold medicine in time, Li Tangli woke up the next day without any discomfort, surprisingly.
While washing up, last night’s scenes replayed vividly in her mind—she was both shocked and confused, unable to understand why Gu Zhi had developed different feelings toward her.
She studied herself carefully in the mirror, looking this way and that, and truly couldn’t see anything about herself that was attractive. Not to mention, he was Ji Jiayu’s uncle…
But now wasn’t the time to dwell on it—she needed to figure out how to leave as soon as possible.
But Li Tangli quickly realized this was futile. Even if she managed to leave this villa now, wouldn’t she still be running into Gu Zhi every day once back at the apartment?
Every retreat, front and back, was blocked off. She was stuck fast to the web Gu Zhi had been carefully spinning these past days, unable to break free.
Just as she was fretting over it, there was a knock at the door—it was the same auntie who’d brought her the earrings before. Though she could tell Li Tangli was suppressing something, her expression was still one of surprise.
She’d been called in by President Gu that morning on short notice, carrying two outfits he’d instructed her to bring, saying to have Miss Li in the guest room pick one and help her put it on.
She was just past fifty, not yet blind with age. This Miss Li… wasn’t she supposed to be Young Master Ji’s girlfriend?
Why would President Gu be sending her clothes? · BlackLotus Novel Translations — Black Lotus
Li Tangli lowered her head. Two dresses, one white and one pink. Bright colors, sharp and high-end tailoring. Each set had also been carefully matched with earrings, a necklace, and other accessories.
Having been with Ji Jiayu for a few months now, she had at least some eye for such things. Flipping over the collar to find the hidden logo, she immediately realized these two outfits couldn’t have cost less than tens of thousands.
Add to that the diamond necklace that was obviously worth a fortune, and Li Tangli recoiled as if she’d grabbed a hot potato.
She shook her head: “Auntie, this is too valuable, I can’t accept it. Please let him know for me.”
